


you are the sound i hear

by meritmut



Series: i loved you well, when we were young [21]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: But also, Emotional Sex, Explicit Consent, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Murderplants, Mutual Pining, Requited Unrequited Love, Sex Pollen, Sifki Week, Sifki Week 2017, author can be found in the Shame Cube contemplating their choices, forests that probably want to eat you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 05:59:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11480112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meritmut/pseuds/meritmut
Summary: (you are in my veins now / and there's no denying / as we both burst into flames / this is what i crave / i'm lost, i'm saved)Misadventures in forests and feelings.





	you are the sound i hear

**Author's Note:**

> for [Sifki Week 2017](https://sifkiweek2017.tumblr.com/) (technically for the 'secrets' prompt but it got away from me)

_Damn you, Loki._

She could’ve been hunting in Vanaheimr today. Had been _invited_ hunting, and waved the riders off with more than a little regret. She could’ve been flat on her belly amid the long grasses of the steppe now, spear in hand, every sense attuned to the slightest shift of the breeze in her hair, the sunlight on her skin, poised for the kill and ready to claim the prize. She could’ve been _anywhere_ but here.

Here, slogging through some remote jungle in the furthest-flung reaches of Alfheimr, her leggings sticking to her skin with sweat and the bushes whacking at her calves with every step as she follows the tall, dark shape between the trees, cursing his name under her breath whenever she has to draw her glaive to carve them a path through the forest.

Overhead, the treetops form a thick canopy, wide leaves interlacing to turn the jungle below into a dim and verdant underworld, pollen spores and airborne seeds drifting around them like dustmotes in the sun.

She thinks longingly of the smooth, rolling plains of Vanaheimr.

_Damn you, damn you, damn you._

She thinks of the excited gleam in Loki’s eyes when he’d asked her presence on a quest of another kind, tracking down some rare plant in the stifling jungles of the elven realm.

One day, she swears, she’ll learn how to refuse that look.

As they descend into the lowest part of the valley, a strange feeling begins to come over her—a faint light-headedness, as though the air were growing thinner rather than thicker, as though it were into some high mountain ascent they travelled and not a river basin so dense with vegetation of all kinds that they have to fight their way through in places, uncomfortably warm as much from exertion as from the close, humid air trapped beneath the canopy.

Sweat gathers at her nape and the small of her back. There’s no hope of a breeze this far down in the valley, and Sif finds herself wondering how Loki can bear the heat in his layered leathers.

The flowers grow more thickly down here too, and are of wilder, stranger sorts than those on the plateau above. Curious, bell-shaped blooms the colour of flame hang from lianas as thick as her forearm, while monstrous things that bear no resemblance to any flower Sif knows loll like dark red tongues across the forest floor, sap-drenched snares laid to trap the unwary in sticky pools. Here and there, ghostly poppies sway and drift on unseen winds, their milk-white hearts thrust with veins of gold, translucent petals almost glowing in the fading light.

All around them the forest transforms with the encroaching twilight, new lights appearing in every direction as the natural luminescence of this alien jungle shimmers into life. Nightfall turns the bell-like flowers into glowing lanterns, gouts of amber fire weeping from the trees as below those spectral poppies sail like moons in miniature. Even the leaves and shrubs glint with delicate threads of light, blues and silvers and purples turning this warm, claustrophobic valley into an eerie submarine world of darting lights and will-o’-the-wisps.

Up ahead the close quiet of the forest is shattered by a sudden violent sneeze, followed by a mumbled oath. The trees around Loki seem to glimmer faintly: his passage through the undergrowth had knocked a cluster of those pale white poppies reeling, disturbing a great glinting cloud of golden pollen into the air.

She blinks, unsure if her eyes are deceiving her or if the dark greenery there is moving of its own accord.

Loki has stopped to inspect the poppies—which are, Sif realises, only one part of the plant that’s caught his eye. Broad, dark leaves half the size of a man fold around its base, fat vines coiling around them and up into the nearby trees like serpents. Slimmer vines wind around the poppies’ stalks, and when Sif manages to focus her swimming eyes on them she realises those thinner tendrils really _are_ moving.

One of the tiny vines is reaching out toward the source of the disturbance, blindly seeking him.

And Loki, like the inquisitive fool he is, extends a hand toward it.

“What’re you about, there?” she moves closer to his side, still blinking in an effort to clear her vision. It’s harder to breathe down here too, the closeness of the flora and the oppressive shelter of the trees trapping any air beneath their fan-shaped leaves. She takes a deep breath and manages to get a lungful of pollen too, her throat itching slightly as the stuff goes down.

Frowning, she watches Loki allow the little questing vine to find his hand and begin eagerly curling itself about his wrist.

“Remarkable,” he breathes, “come and see, my lady.”

“See what?” Sif peers over his shoulder, curious to see what has him so rapt despite the slow, tingling warmth that begins to spread through her, a fidgety kind of restlessness taking root deep in her body and urging her to do— _something._

“I can feel it,” he explains, turning his hand this away and that as if to admire the green tendrils winding around his pale wrist. He’s faintly out of breath, his cheeks flushed from the heat and the long walk. This close, she can see the sweat beading along his dark hairline. “Some form of mild toxin.”

“Get it off you, then,” she grouses, and leans over to tear it away herself.

“Wait—” Loki jerks his arm out of her reach. She watches as more of the vines uncoil from the plant, flexing and curling almost beseechingly in his direction.

“It would appear to have a taste for you,” Sif snorts, wincing as it irritates the itch in the back of her throat. Her mouth feels dry, scratchy, like she’s breathing dust rather than a thousand different pollens. The air is so _thick,_ here. It can be the only reason why she feels like she’s sliding slowly out of her skin, sluggish and twitchy all at once.

When she looks up again Loki’s eyes have gained a glassy sheen, and she’s hit with a rush of warmth that near takes her breath away altogether.

“Oh,” she exhales.

Distantly, she becomes aware of more vines coiling around her own wrist, over her hip, plucking delicately at her leathers as if to get her attention. She brushes at them halfheartedly, blinking stubbornly through the fog that has settled over her mind and focussing on dragging as much of the burning air as she can down a windpipe that feels like it’s closing up.

Is this some predatory mechanism of the forest? Maybe the gold dust isn’t pollen at all, but deadly spores that weaken prey and lull them unresisting into oblivion. Sif casts a wary eye over the nearby plant. She doesn’t want to think of what lies under those enormous leaves, the vast dark wells of fluid in which birds and beasts unwary enough to wander close might meet their end.

She doesn’t intend to be one of them.

Pushing past the heat laying heavy over her limbs she steps closer to Loki, about to demand that they move on, that they find what they’re here for and climb out of this hungry swamp of a forest before it eats them alive.

He’s still studying the vine, running one fingertip over it like some preening pet, but at the sound of his name he looks up. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, a flash of dark pink that sets her pulse fluttering.

“What—” he starts, blinking at her, and then— “ah.”

“What?”

“The flowers,” he gestures at the poppies, full, moon-white heads swaying gently in a non-existent breeze. “Of course.”

Sif rolls her eyes. “Of course, _what?”_

He ignores her, reaching out again with one finger to tap the side of the nearest poppy and send a fresh cloud of sparkling dust rising up from its sunburst heart.

“Loki,” she murmurs warningly, the dizziness intensifying as her lungs pull more of the slowly-dispersing cloud into her body, her chest filling with sweet fire as it every breath paints her insides with gold. Her limbs feel slack, loose, boneless, and yet the tension in her lower belly has her biting back a whine.

She watches his long, deft finger curl into the poppy and feels a sharp burst of _want_ in her gut.

 _“Loki,”_ the muted urgency in her voice finally catches his attention. His eyes find hers, the greenish-blue of his irises almost entirely swallowed up by black.

“Sif,” he whispers, finally grasping the trouble they’re in.

The sound of her name has the fire rising higher. She hopes he can’t see her pressing her thighs together to relieve the ache a little but his gaze darts lower for half a heartbeat and Loki bites his lip, putting paid to _that_ hope. He glances between her eyes, her mouth and the flower he’d touched, wavering on the edge of a thought.

“What is _happening?”_ she grits out.

The poppy’s head comes off with a decisive _snap,_ Loki wincing as the vines about his wrist tighten in umbrage at his violence. Slowly, his gaze fixed on hers as if daring her to back away, he lifts the creamy-white flower up to her in offering.

“What are—”

“Trust me,” he says. Sif’s stomach gives a lurch at the look in his eyes.

She holds that stare for a long moment. There’s curiosity there, curiosity and anticipation and _challenge,_ and it’s the latter more than anything that has her putting aside her misgivings.

Dipping her head toward Loki’s outstretched hand, her eyes still on his, Sif inhales.

It _burns._

It rips into her like a sudden flame, igniting in her gut like the red haze of battle-lust. It feels as though another heart and mind have taken up under her skin and she no longer knows where she ends or begins, every nerve ending set alight, every sense reaching out for something, _anything_ to satiate the hunger crawling through her.

It’s agony, to need so much—she thinks she must surely _die_ of it if nothing’s done.

“Oh,” her voice cracks, “it hurts.”

Her body cries out for touch, for relief, for _release._ She chokes back a gasp as the burn in her throat turns suffocating—gods, will it choke her, will it cut off her air and kill her that way?

“I know,” Loki’s voice reaches her from many miles away, “I—”

He falters, his fingers tightening around the flower. He looks distracted, scattered, feverish with the same maddening, nameless _need_ that has Sif at her wits’ end.

“This isn’t right,” he mutters, and she wants to sigh _yes, at last you’re paying attention to this,_ but nothing comes out.

She watches the poppy slide from his shaking fingers.

His hand remains outstretched, so pale in the witch-light of the forest that his skin seems almost blue. Sif stares at it for a few moments, her muddled mind unable to understand why it hangs empty between them but also why every instinct calls for her to reach out and _take it,_ until Loki calls her name again and slowly, inexorably, closes the distance between them.

His hand slides over her cheek and finally that need has a name.

Her fingers wrap about his collar to tug him towards her, his own lacing into her hair to hold him to her as their lips meet and the world turns gold.

 

-

 

His mouth is the softest thing she’s ever felt and she wants to be consumed by it. She wants to _consume,_ to bite down until she breaks the skin and drink his blood until it fills her up, until she no longer feels so _empty._ Gods and stars, but she aches to be so hollow, for the vast dark space inside her that pulses like a second heartbeat and _longs_ to be filled. She wants to crawl inside him and make a home in his foolhardy, reckless heart, wants to feel him hot and desperate against every inch of her skin, _needs_ to feel the fire climb higher and higher until it consumes them both and leaves nothing of them but ash—

Loki bites at her lower lip and Sif growls.

“Open your mouth,” he pulls away to press light, imploring kisses against her lips, her chin, her cheeks. “Sif…open your mouth for me, darling, please…” his voice is hoarse and desperate and maybe if she holds out she’ll get to hear her name uttered in that low, reverent whisper again but his lips look so inviting, flushed and reddened, the lower quivering, and she _wants_ —

(She wants to see how many other ways she can make him beg.)

She leans in to tease him with soft, open-mouthed kisses. “Like this?” she murmurs, trailing her lips up along his jaw and taking his earlobe between her teeth. “Or…”

His whole body shudders when she kisses her way back to his mouth, one hand burying itself in her hair while the other fumbles carelessly for another poppy. She leans back as he brings the flower between them, regarding it thoughtfully. His tongue darts out to wet the tip of his finger and set her insides swooping delightfully, and then he dips it into the golden core of the flower, gathering up a little pollen and lifting it to his mouth.

She watches his lips close about his fingertip, his cheeks hollowing as he sucks it clean. Her breath hitches at the way his eyes blacken still further, blown out and eclipsed by lust.

Again his finger curls into the flower’s heart and this time he coats his lips with it, staining his rosy-flushed mouth with shimmering gold like some painted courtier (like a _courtesan,_ her wretched mind supplies). Her insides coiling with want, Sif licks her own lips and pulls him in for a kiss, her tongue flicking out hungry to taste him. All her doubts scatter to the winds as the flames engulf her senses, coals turning to honey on their way down her throat as she licks her way into his mouth and loses herself in the taste of him.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” she says, pressing her forehead against his. His breath washes over her cheeks, hot and heavy and laced with sweetness.

“The only kind worth playing,” grinning dazedly at her, he leans in to press his lips to hers again, “are you not with me, lady?”

In answer she drags him back for a searing kiss, her body curving shamelessly into his like she would fold herself into him and make of them one single creature. She feels light and heavy all at once, every inch of her raw with such sensitivity the slightest brush of his hands over her is enough to spark an inferno in her core, the movement of his mouth enough that she could fly out of her skin if he let her go now. She’s never been more _aware_ of the worn edges of her leathers, the sweat on her back, the itching flick of her hair over her upper arms. She longs to be naked, for cool waters to throw herself into and draw this wanton poison from her veins.

She longs to let it ruin her.

“Burns,” she says dumbly.

“I know,” Loki rests his forehead against her temple, “I know. I feel it too.”

“Then _do_ something,” she rasps, hating the pleading edge in her voice, _“touch_ me.”

He huffs an unsteady laugh, “I was waiting for you to ask.”

“I wasn’t asking,” she brings her hand down between his legs to make him gasp into her hair. Blindly, her fingers seek the fastenings of his clothes, skimming over the seams to find the concealed buckles keeping him together. She doesn’t want him _together,_ not when she’s coming apart at the edges. She wants him _undone,_ wants him open and needy and wanting like her, reduced to a thing half an animal and half a forest fire and all endless, shivering desire.

Her hands are soldier’s hands, blunt, rough things made for dealing death, but her fingers are defter than they look and he doesn’t need to know how often she’s imagined this before. His green cloak hits the ground before Loki can summon enough of his wits to start peeling Sif’s own leathers from her body; his mouth finds hers again as they race to undress one another, starving kisses barely enough to sate the need boiling in their blood while their hands are occupied stripping each other naked to the warm night air.

Stars have lived and died since the day Loki looked at Sif and knew she was the loveliest thing he had—or ever would—set eyes on. It’s a perfect truth, as essential to his understanding of the universe as gravity; an absolute fundament of reality itself, and yet when his shaking hands bare the last of her golden form to the twilight and her raven hair comes tumbling down around her shoulders and she stands, bold and glowing in the half-light like she’s stepped out of a dream, something akin to wonder forces Loki to his knees before her. He’s still in his pants and boots and so hard he _aches,_ but he’s been hard for her since the first flurry of pollen hit his lungs and how often will he get the chance to kneel before her and just—look.

“Loki,” Sif murmurs unsteadily when it becomes apparent he has no intention of doing anything else, “if you don’t touch me…”

He’s lurching forward before she can finish the threat, his hands coming up to frame her hips as he bends to press a kiss to her lower abdomen. She shudders lightly at the hot rush of his breath over the apex of her thighs, an answering throb deep inside her leaving her slick with arousal. His mouth hovers, _so_ near to where she wants it, his fingers flexing against her hips.

He tilts his head to blink up at her, features hazy with desire.

“You’re so _beautiful,”_ he murmurs, flashing her a wicked grin before ducking his head again to trail kisses over her inner thighs, the sudden flutter of heat enough to weaken her legs and drag a shameless moan from her.

She’ll _die_ if he doesn’t do something soon, but she’ll make sure to kill him first.

Locking her traitorous knees, she moves one hand to his hair. “Loki…” she sighs, all want and plaintive longing even though she wants to _snarl_ at his teasing. Why does he torture her? She aches, can’t he feel it? She burns for him, why isn’t he _touching_ her?

With a fevered groan he moves his hands to her thighs and nudges them apart, bringing his thumbs up to part her lips—so sensitive the slightest brush of contact has her toes curling—and finally, _finally_ touch her where she needs. One thumb dips in to strum over her clit and at the sound of the girlish gasp it elicits a look comes over Loki’s face like he can’t decide whether he wants to drown in her or devour her whole. He settles for devouring her reactions; his hand grows bolder, mapping out the places and touches that stimulate the most enticing noises from her, the delicious little moans and sighs she works hard to stifle because even with some alien sex toxin turning her head to clouds and her bones to syrup she’s the most contrary, impossible woman in this or any other realm and she’ll never just make it _easy._

But then, if she weren’t that woman, he probably wouldn’t love her.

He takes pity when his thumbnail catches on her clit and she hisses, ducking forward to put his mouth on her in mute apology. The taste of her hits his tongue and his senses are filled with _her,_ sharp and heady and he can’t drown in her fast enough. He chases that taste with the tip of his tongue, torn between working her to release as fast as he can and teasing her for as long as she can bear.

(If she’d let him, he’d drag this out forever.)

 

-

 

He’s going to kill her. Is _trying_ to kill her. Sif sways where she stands, barely keeping her knees from buckling as the flick-suck-press rhythm of his tongue against her clit builds a sweet and unstoppable pressure in her abdomen.

His left hand comes up to trail between her legs and the sudden shock of two fingers thrusting into her has her coming with a shout, her climax a swift violent stab of pleasure that leaves her trembling and gasping for breath above him. Loki guides her through it with light circles of his tongue and gentle thrusts of his fingers, coaxing her through the aftershocks without ever letting up on her.

He pulls away from her clit to trail sloppy kisses over her stomach, fingers still working in and out as her muscles shiver around him; he crooks them inside her and she swears aloud, her grip tightening in his hair when he finds that sweet spot inside her. Observing her reaction he repeats the motion, quickening his pace until she’s quivering above him again, a thin sheen of sweat lending her skin a faint luminosity in the shifting twilight, and eventually he can work a third finger inside of her.

He wonders with an edge of delirium how much he can make her take, how much he can _give_ before it’s enough. However much, it won’t ever be enough for him.

“You’re so responsive,” he groans in awe, dragging his fingers over that stretch of nerves inside her until she’s nearly sobbing. “Will you come for me again? You can do it, sweetheart, can’t you? Come on my hand like you did on my mouth?” Slowly, keeping his fingers inside her, he guides her backward until she’s pressed up against the tree, the soft mosses around its roots gentler on his knees than the forest floor. “Let me please you,” he murmurs into her thigh. “Let me make you come again. You will, Sif, again and again until you can’t take any more,” he gives a thrust of his hand against her, curling his fingers until she sobs, “and then you will anyway.”

Her hips twitch helplessly into him and she starts to ride his hand, hungry for that promised pleasure. “Doesn’t sound like the flowers talking, princeling,” she turns hooded eyes on him, “sure it’s not affecting your ego too?”

He gives another rough shove into her for that, fingers curling ungently as he puts his mouth to her again and replaces her breathless taunting with something sweeter.

He’s just starting to contemplate a fourth finger when she clenches so hard around him he’s nearly forced out of her, her thighs clamping down on his wrist as she comes again with a shattered cry.

Mouthing soft nothings into her hip, Loki pulls his hand away so he can press soothing motions into the hard muscle of her thigh. “You look so perfect like this, Sif.”

“Shut up,” she mutters, voice ragged, inching herself away from his reddened lips. “I—oh, fuck,” her eyes flash darkly in the gloom and the heat there sends his heartbeat racing, “I—still want you, still _need—Loki—”_

He takes in the glory of her, dark hair spilling around her shoulders, chest heaving, a deep flush colouring her skin from her cheeks down to the tips of her breasts. “I know,” he hopes she can see in this moment how deeply he echoes that need, and how little it has to do with the toxin still scorching through his body and begging him to be closer, _closer, one with_ her. In the end, there’s nothing to say but what has already been said. “I—I do too.”

Leaning down, Sif cups his jaw in her hands. His mouth is slick with the taste of her but she kisses him and it’s sweeter than anything, and when she wrenches another flower from the bush and coats her fingers with the pollen it isn’t even conscious thought that makes him part his lips for her to push her fingers past his teeth and press against the roof of his mouth.

He laps greedily at her skin, tongue curling around her fingers, his eyes never leaving her as his body flares into light wherever it touches hers. He’s half-lost to the onslaught of sensation, aware of nothing but the earth under his knees and Sif, Sif _everywhere,_ her taste on his tongue and her fingers filling his mouth and her eyes blazing like stars in the night. He closes his lips around her and bites down on her knuckles, sucking until he can taste only the salt and iron of her skin.

She pulls away long enough to kneel over his thighs, settling her hips over his waist and Loki doesn’t hesitate in leaning forward to take one of her nipples into his mouth. His hand finds the other, roughly tweaking while his tongue flicks over her—then switching, caressing with his fingers while he adds a hint of teeth to drive her wild with the interplay of pain and pleasure. Soon she’s grinding against his hips, the friction providing some desperately needed relief to the both of them until they’re whimpering like youths first learning the gifts of their bodies, her hands buried in his hair and his mouth sucking red petals into her chest.

Fleetingly he thinks of painting her breasts with the pollen, of coating her skin with gold and devouring her that way, but doing so would mean leaving them alone for longer than it takes to draw air into his lungs and it’s the work of the toxin already burning through his system that he couldn’t part from her now if his life depended on it.

(He isn’t totally detached from his wits, though, and so he stores the thought away for later.)

 

-

 

He plays with her breasts until they’re too tender for even Sif to bear and she pushes his head away, batting at his hand as she bends to kiss him like it pains her to be apart from his lips for even a moment. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her flush to him, delighting in the warmth of her against his body even as the drug in his blood screams _not enough._

“How—nh—how long will it last, d’you think?” she gasps into his shoulder, rocking her hips into his, her fingers toying idly with the hair at the base of his neck.

“Probably—” Loki clears his throat, “until it’s gotten what it wants from us.”

(Probably longer, given the way they’ve been licking the stuff off each other.)

Frowning, Sif pulls away to look around them thoughtfully. Loki follows her gaze. Her ankles rest beneath her thighs at his sides and already slender little vines have begun twining their way around her, curling between her toes as if seeking closeness with her skin. While they lie here, lost in each other and the throes of desire, the jungle presses close, those ethereal poppies swaying around them like moons through the night, each movement releasing ever more clouds of gold into the air and filling the world around them with a mead-sweet haze.

Sif lifts his right hand to inspect his wrist. The skin there is inflamed, red blotches marking where the plant had clung. He can see her mind working as she puts the pieces together.

“The dust,” she murmurs, “and then the vines…” she glances over to where the vines coil thick as her forearm around those great, dark leaves that enfold the base of the plant in shadow. She turns back to Loki, one eyebrow raised. “You knew?”

“Guessed,” he grunts, rolling his hips to try and get her back to more important matters. “Don’t intend on staying to find out.”

The eyebrow arches higher, a smirk playing across her lips, but apparently the mild peril does more to turn her on than anything (because of _course_ it does, this is _Sif_ ), and already her eyes are clouding over again with lust.

“Best be quick then, Silver-tongue,” she grins, “something else might eat you before I do.”

Heat flares anew in his belly and before she can taunt him again Loki moves, one hand pressed to the small of her back as he rolls them swiftly over.

He doesn't think she's aware of the fact that she's capable of taking his breath away just by walking in a room, of having him tripping over that supposed silver-tongue with a mere glance in his direction. He’d long since abandoned hope of his idle fantasies becoming reality, so sure that even if—dream of dreams—she shared his regard, she would never allow herself to return it. Half-convinced this is a dream as it is, that it’s only unconscious longing that conjures this vision of her splayed out naked beneath him, hair spreading over the earth like the veil of night and the stars glimmering in her eyes like banked coals, Loki can do nothing but look at her, saving this moment in his memory forever lest he wake in his bed, hard and aching and alone.

“Loki,” Sif lifts her hand to brush over his forehead, “where’ve you gone, there?”

The gentleness of her touch pierces the fog of the poppies and waylays Loki’s thoughts from the pessimistic turn they’ve taken. Catching her hand in his own, he laces their fingers together. “Nowhere,” he says, brushing a kiss over her knuckles, “I’m here.”

Her features soften, all warmth and unfamiliar tenderness as—briefly—she too pushes through the haze of desire clouding their minds and driving their bodies into madness. She looks up at him, at their joined hands, and a new, uncertain clarity comes over her.

“Loki,” she whispers again, something like wonder in her voice.

“I’m here,” he repeats, bending to rest his forehead against hers again. “I have you, Sif.”

Her body goes still beneath him.

“Mm,” a slow smile curves across her lips and he becomes aware of her hips shifting pointedly under his, “you do.”

There’s something different in her voice, and when he pulls away the lazy smile remains but the openness in her eyes is gone. She looks at him searchingly, her body still languid and needy for his touch, but—different, somehow. Before Loki can attempt to unravel it she’s grinding her hips into his again, reaching out with one hand for the flower she’d dropped to lift it up and offer it to him.

“Breathe,” she says, her voice barely a breath and yet a command, “breathe in, Loki. Come back to me.”

One look in her eyes has Loki surrendering to the inevitable, drawing in a breath that fills his lungs with light and sets a new fire racing straight to his cock even as Sif reaches down to free it from his pants and help him slide (less carefully than he might’ve under his own steam) into the scorching heat of her, a cry torn from both their throats mingling in the sultry air as finally she wraps around him and _oh—_ this is what it is to die in fire, to burn by inches. This is what it is to be _whole._

He takes too long to move, transfixed by the war of sensation and need raging through him as she flutters and tightens around him, and it’s Sif—glorious, fierce, _impatient_ Sif—who plants her hands on his ass to pull him into her with a rough jerk of her hips that has him seeing _stars._

“That’s it,” she grunts when he begins to match her pace, his hips working steadily against hers. Her legs lock around his waist and she sinks one hand into his hair, the other digging blunt nails into his shoulder as she muffles her wonderful sounds in his neck.

Gradually, the effect of the poppies seems to lose its harsh edge, the animal urgency of their need smoothing away to leave a more natural kind of desire that lends itself to synchronicity and exploration, has them moving faster, together, driven by the need to lose themselves in pleasure and in one another. There’s never been heat like this, like the fire that blooms wherever their bodies touch, never pleasure like the quicksilver rush that has her spasming every time he hilts himself inside her and moaning so deeply he can _feel_ it, coming undone to the rhythm of their hips sliding against each other.

In the back of his mind lingers the awareness of the vines, winding their way steadily around his ankles and calves; of the heady sweetness of the spores in the air and in their blood and Loki fears, beneath the bliss, that Sif did not want this in the same way. That she drank so deeply of the gold because without it she couldn’t bear this, and offered it to him because she believed the same of him. Her eyes are dark with pleasure but there’s no telling if this is real for her; if she hates him even now, driven to accept him anyway by the pain that had met their resistance.

Not that they’d _resisted_ long.

“I can hear you thinking from here,” her nails scrape over his scalp, forcing a groan from somewhere deep inside him. “Where’ve you gone this time?”

Nowhere, the assurance rises to his lips again: nowhere, he has never been more present, never existed so lucidly as he does in this moment when he’s never been closer to her. But it’s only half a truth, and what comes out instead is—

“I’m sorry,” it’s barely a mumble, pressed into the hot, damp skin of her neck. “I—I’m sorry. I would never—I wouldn’t—” he needs her to know, he isn’t the sort of man who’d take this, who’d use trickery to demand more than she would give, she’s always known him best of all and if she ever saw him true then she has to _know_ —

And because he’s never been closer to her, he feels it when her body tenses up again.

“Loki,” Sif’s voice is faintly strained with the effort it takes to hold onto herself. “Are you saying you’d never have wanted this, were it not for the flowers? Or that you’d never have _done_ this?”

His mind registers the distinction, but an honest answer would demand vulnerability beyond even this and so Loki leans up until he can look into her eyes and ask, “would _you_ have wanted this?”

Those eyes flash dangerously and suddenly he finds himself flat on his back again.

“I _want_ this,” Sif hisses, the _‘idiot’_ only implied. “I want this, Loki.” Her thighs form a vice around his hips, her hands firm on his chest to pin him down, “but if you do not, tell me _now.”_

For the first time Loki detects a hint of fear in her voice.

Alarmed, he reaches up to gently gather the loose locks of her hair in one fist and pull her down to him. “I want you, Sif. All of you. Never doubt that.” He kisses her deeply, trying to convey in the movement of his lips what he can’t say, to impress on her with the shift of his hips and the race of his soaring, eager heart that there _are_ things that can’t be said here, when their bodies are slaves to their instincts and their instincts are scarcely their own, but if she would only listen she might hear them anyway.

She kisses back with a ferocity that takes his breath away, her body a firebrand pressing his into the ground.

 _Will you want me when this is over?_ he thinks, enclosing her in his arms again. He can feel her heart through her skin, swift as a bird’s and steady as the tide. _Will you remember this with anything but regret, will you think of me with anything but disgust?_

“Hey,” she whispers again, low and full of affection, “come back to me.”

“Not going to last,” he pants, “Sif—not going to last long.”

“Good,” she croons, one hand sliding down over his chest to close gently about his throat. Pushing herself up, she slams herself down again hard enough to birth stars in his eyes and tear free a strangled curse. “Come on, love. Come for me.”

Doubt, insecurity, the fear that whatever scant regard lived in Sif’s heart for him will not survive this encounter under the spreading starlit trees flies from Loki’s mind when she leans in to bite down _hard_ on his neck, the sudden shock of pain scattering his thoughts to the night and pushing him over the edge. He comes with a ragged groan, burying his forehead in her sweat-slick neck and tightening his arms about her waist as his thrusts falter and Sif follows him into her own breathtaking climax.

He means to hold onto this moment for as long as he can, along with the vain, foolish hope that he hasn’t ruined everything with his carelessness—that when their minds are theirs alone again she won’t be left filled with regret for what they’ve done, and revulsion for Loki, who brought her here, who for one thoughtless second had acted with his heart rather than his head and maybe cost it everything. That, when the flames die down, there’ll be something left to save in the ashes.

A new ache fills him, now, holding her like this, their bodies warm and heavy and sated, the folds of his cloak uncomfortable under his shoulders and the vines tightening their grip on his limbs. The world is quiet, only the sound of their breathing and the drifting sigh of the trees overhead. He could lie here forever like this, so long as she was with him.

He feels it when clarity returns, though; when she goes still in his arms, and only hopes she cannot hear his heart threatening to burst out of his chest.

Slowly, she pushes herself upright, her long hair falling heavy over her shoulders. Without thinking Loki reaches up to pluck a leaf from above her ear, cursing his thoughtlessness when she goes stiff again.

She won’t look at him.

He flicks the leaf away, letting his hand fall to rest, tentatively, over hers on his sternum. The unexpected touch finally draws her gaze down to him, her expression unreadable.

“Well,” he says quietly, hoping that maybe if he can make her smile he can save this.

The sound of Sif’s amused snort loosens some of the knots in his stomach.

“Flowers, hmm?”

Loki can feel his face heat up. “Dangerous things,” he remarks evasively, the corner of his lips twitching when she raises her beautiful eyes skyward.

Belatedly it registers that he is still inside her.

“We should go,” she says after a moment spent gaining her bearings, drumming her fingertips on his chest, “before some oversized weed makes a meal of us.”

Just like that she’s sliding off him and rising to her feet, proud and naked and lovely as the dawn. When she extends a hand to him to haul him up beside her, Loki can do nothing but take it.

He kicks the vines away, finally beginning to feel the sting around his wrists. Sif’s ankles and lower calves are coming up red and irritated where the vines had clung. Her neck and breasts look a little worse for wear too, but he can’t blame _that_ on the plants.

“Yes,” he agrees after too long a pause.

She turns away to dress herself. Loki, still shirtless, moves back toward the poppies, reaching out a curious hand—

“Don’t,” he freezes at the harsh sound of her voice. When he glances over his shoulder her eyes are hard and dark, fixed on the flowers. “Don’t want to set it off again, do we,” she mutters, looking away from him again.

His heart gives a squeeze. “Ah,” he pulls away, and now it’s he who struggles to look at her. “Of course.”

They dress in silence on faintly shaking legs, passing each other hastily-discarded boots and vambraces and kicking at the vines that reach for them even now. Loki can’t look higher on her face than her mouth and Sif isn’t looking at him at all but, eventually, fully-clad and armoured and feeling all the safer for it—yet somehow no less naked—they turn back to each other.

Under it all, they wear each other close to the skin, still. He always has, he thinks—there’s a place in his heart quite irretrievably lost to her, a place he goes in dreams where things are different, but her scent still lingers in his senses and there are bruises ripening on his neck from her teeth and it feels like, for a few heart-stopping minutes, it had been _real._

And now she shuts herself off from him, throwing up every shield she has through she stands but a few paces away.

He’s going to lose her.

_You never had her._

“Sif,” her gaze darts up to his and he holds it there as, stepping close, he reaches out a hand to brush her hair behind her ear.

He keeps his touch gentle, half-afraid it might spook her, but her eyes flutter closed and she lets him do it and he can’t help but take a mile, brushing his knuckles lightly over her cheekbone as he lets his hand fall.

Would she let him braid her hair, he wonders, if things truly were different?

“I’m—”

“Don’t,” she interrupts quietly, “don’t apologise. It wasn’t you. It’s better if we don’t—if we go on like this didn’t happen. No regrets. It wasn’t us. Nothing happened.”

Loki takes a deep breath. Stepping back again, he looks away from her to gather his wits—and his own shields—about him. Eventually, though it can’t be more than few seconds, he nods.

No regrets. Nothing happened. The message could not be clearer.

“Of course,” he says again. “Forgive me.”

Glad of the armour that covers him, and for the gift of a liar’s tongue, he turns on his heel and begins to stride away.

It’ll be better this way. He assures himself of that as his feet carry him away from her into the jungle. Better to go back to that time—less than an hour ago, but somehow it feels like another life—when she had no reason to even suspect what he felt for her, when he could keep those feelings closer than any secret to his chest. Better to stay that way, existing in an agony of hesitation and hope than have her ashamed to so much as look at him, reluctant to come near him because he won’t let her forget what happened here. Would in his selfishness have her remember, demand something of her she wasn’t ever truly willing to give.

There are dark waters between his heart and hers, miles and miles and the psychoactive spores of some wretched plant are neither thick enough to bridge those miles nor powerful enough to part them. Sif is radiant, she blazes even now, but her heart is hidden from him and he doesn’t know how to reach her anymore.

Maybe it’s simply that there is no room for him in that heart, that it turned dark to him the hour her hair did: maybe he poisoned that wellspring long ago without ever guessing he’d one day find the universe a desert without it. Maybe—

Loki curses to himself. It’s no good. He’s known the taste of those waters now, waded so deep into them he can’t find the way back and sinks under the weight of his own heart, leaden with a yearning that is everything and nothing to do with the flowers whose perfume lingers in his throat.

The forest’s power is spent, even the dizziness receding from his system, but scent of that grove will have sway over him until the day he dies for the vivid sense-memories it carries, the fragrance of her skin and her hair, the heady taste of her pleasure. Those things will haunt him forever.

It would’ve been a fate less cruel to be ingested by that fucking plant.

His wrist itches, ribboned with red. Maybe if his luck holds it’ll scar, leave a lasting reminder on his skin when the marks left by her mouth and the scent of her have faded. Maybe she’ll haunt him that way too, and it can be one more thing she won’t stomach looking at.

But he knows, as surely as he knows he can’t forget what happened here, but for her will pretend anyway, that the swelling and the bruises and the scent will fade within a day, and he will be left with nothing but the memory and the knowledge that it’ll never be enough, and he has no one to blame but himself for it.

 

-

 

Sif watches him walk away, her heart thick in her throat and the nagging feeling in her gut that something happened here, the importance of which she will not grasp until later. In the hunch of Loki’s shoulders she observes something more than regret or embarrassment—she sees _hurt,_ and it pulls at some answering grief within her. It cries out for her to follow him, to catch him and while the spell of the forest endures steal one last kiss. One more, and let it be enough.

But the strange power of those poppies has already released him: she watched it recede from his eyes before he had even softened fully inside her, watched it give way to uncertainty and fear and something she couldn’t convince herself was not shame. Whatever passed between them under the alien trees of this world, it is over now. She can keep what happened here secret, never speak a word of it to anyone—even him—if it means she never has to see that look on his face again.

Maybe it’s only sentiment, then, some maudlin tugging at her heartstrings, that has Sif turning back to the flowers and reaching out to snap the head off one. She considers it for a long moment, schooling her heart into quiet before she tucks the poppy gently into her belt. It isn’t the plant they came here for, but it’s precious in its own way.

To her, at least.

Loki has all but vanished into the trees ahead. With a heavy heart, Sif follows.

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'the wolf' by fever ray, lyric from 'sexual hallucination' by in this moment
> 
> don't look at me


End file.
